Safety Paper | Used mainly as bank checks and other legal documents. Safety paper is specially treated to prevent erasure, alteration or duplication of any writing or printing on its surface. |
Satin Finish | A smooth, delicately embossed finished paper with sheen. Also called silk. |
Scoring | To impress paper with a rule for the purpose of making folding easier. |
Screenings | Rejected materials, such as knots, shives and large bark particles, from the screening operations of pulp suspensions in a pulp mill. |
Secondary Fiber | Any type of paper and paperboard fiber obtained from wastepaper and other used reclaimable fiber sources. |
Secondary Pulp | Lower-quality pulp made from waste paper and not directly from wood. |
Semichemical Pulp | Pulp made by cooking fibrous materials in a neutral sodium sulfite/sodium carbonate cooking liquor. |
Sheet | Flat piece of any type of pulp, paper and paperboard that has a variety of characteristics, sizes and finishes. |
Silvichemicals | Chemical byproducts of the wood-pulping process and other chemicals derived from wood. |
Size | Non-fibrous materials used in papermaking to control the absorbency of paper. Rosin, gelatins, glues, starch and alum are the most commonly used. |
Sizing | This process can be applied on the surface of the sheet or in the sheet: in the first case starch is applied to the surface to increase its strength and to resist the penetration of oil-based inks (this process is carried out at the size press, which is about two-thirds of the way down the dry end); in the second case chemicals are added to the stock at the pulping stage before the sheet is formed: this is called internal or engine sizing and its purpose is to stop penetration of water-based inks into the sheet. |
Size Press | Section of paper machine where surface treatments are applied to the sheet of paper to give it special qualities. Normally a pair of rolls toward the end of the dryer train between which the dry or partially dry web is passed, and into the nip of which a liquid, usually starch, is applied to impart strength to the sheet. |
Slurry | A liquid mixture consisting of suspended fibers, fillers, coating pigments and other solid material in water or adhesive, used in papermaking process. |
Slush | Pulp stock-water suspension thin enough to flow or pump through a pipeline, usually running about 1% to 6% consistency. |
Smoothness | Texture of the surface of paper. Also called its finish. Generally determined with a tester that measures time required for a given volume of air to flow between the surfaces of the paper sample and a piece of optically flat glass under standard loading conditions. |
Softwood | Wood obtained from evergreen, cone-bearing species of trees, such as pines, spruces and hemlocks. This imparts the strength properties to the paper. |
Solid Board | Single-ply paperboard made from the same stock throughout the entire sheet structure. |
Spent Liquor | Used cooking liquor on a chemical pulp mill that is separated from the pulp after the cooking process. It contains lignins, resins and other substances extracted from the material being cooked. |
Specialty Papers and Boards | This is a term applied to such grades as off-machine coated, laminated, impregnated etc. as distinguished from printings and writings and other grades that do not require further processing. Specialty papers and boards are often the raw materials used by other industries. |
Spiral Bind | A binding that includes wire or plastic that is spiraled through holes punched along the binding side. |
Splice | A joint made in a continuous sheet of paper with glue or adhesive tape when a break occurs in the web during winding or rewinding into a roll. |
Spool | Continuous roll of paper or cardboard rolled around a mandrel. |
Standard Conditions | This is assumed to be 29.92 in. of mercury and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. |
Starch | Material made primarily from corn and potatoes that is used as a surface or internal additive to provide strength. |
Stiffness | A quality of paper alluding to its rigidity and resistance to bending and inflexibility. |
Stock | This refers to the wet pulp before it is fed onto a papermaking machine, or during the papermaking processes before it becomes a sheet of paper; contains around 99% water and 1% fiber. In graphic arts, stock means paper. |
Stretch | The give of a sheet of paper as it undergoes tensile pressure. |
Sulfate Process | An alkaline pulp manufacturing process made by using wood chips cooked under pressure in a solution of caustic soda and sodium sulfite. Also known as kraft process. |
Sulfite | An acid pulp manufacturing process in which chips are reduced to their component parts by cooking in a pressurized vessel using a liquor composed of calcium, sodium magnesium or ammonia salts of sulfurous acid. |
Sulfite Pulp | Paper pulp made from wood chips cooked under pressure in a solution of bi-sulfite of lime. |
Supercalender | Auxiliary piece of equipment that gives paper a very smooth surface by passing it through a series of alternate metal and composition rolls, revolving with high speed and pressure. |
Surfaced (paper) | Paper having undergone a coating process to one or both sides to improve the characteristics of its surface. |
Synthetic Fibers | Any petroleum-based waterproof papers with a high tensile strength. |